The Room Inside My Heart
by PinkFreud
Summary: RENT How long does it take before you can feel again? Will be slash, MarkRoger. Please read and review.
1. Chapter 1

**(Mark's POV)**

It rained that day. The sky cracked open and fresh, silver rain poured from heaven like the weeping of fallen angels. He was quiet, and the look on his face was one of pale, dead shock. I supported him with an arm; he would surely have fallen to the ground otherwise. We walked like that down the sidewalk and away from the hospital.

The next day the sun shone, but he did not see it. He saw nothing but dark, the empty darkness of his room. He closed the blinds, shut the door, and retreated into himself. I wanted to go to him. I sat there on the floor outside his room all day, doing nothing but listening; listening for what, I did not know.

Night drifted in as if a funerary curtain was being pulled over the sky; a clock chimed midnight somewhere. Collins sat on the couch, absent-mindedly turning the pages of a magazine. An hour passed, then two.

An audible sigh sliced through the stillness. I jumped as if a bomb had exploded next to me. Collins had gotten up from the couch and was standing next to me.

''You have to sleep, too,'' he said. His face was blank and tired, like an old, worn sheet. ''You're not helping him by sitting out here. Hell be ok, I promise, but you have to give him time.''

Time, time, what was time anyway? How long was time? I stretched out my legs and then looked down at my hands, studying the lines on my palms, looking for my lifeline. According to palminstry, you can tell alot about a person by their hands. The lifeline, for example, is that long, gracefully curving line across your palm. It supposedly gives you insight as to how long you will live.

I was suddenly struck by grief; it occurred to me that I had never looked at Mimi's hands. I didn't even remember what they looked like; if her fingers were long, if her nails were trimmed...there was nothing. Nothing but a blank, empty abyss. She was really gone.

I drew my legs up to my chest, and I think that I actually began to rock myself ridiculously back and forth, like a mad person. Why, I thought then, do they always do that? Why do crazy people always rock themselves back and forth? Maybe the motion soothes them, eases their tortured minds, brings them comfort as if they are being gently rocked to sleep by loving arms, when it is really only their own hands holding them.

Collins sighed again, and it sounded like the striking of a match, hard and sharp. He rubbed his forehead with his hand, and then stared at me.

''This has been a very long day, for all of us,'' he said, ''and I know more than you think. I know why you're out here. It might be grief, but not necessarily for Mimi.''

My head snapped up, and I glared at him with foggy eyes. ''You don't know anything,'' I said. I was trying to sound firm, but the words were issued weakly, and my voice cracked.

''I know'', Collins said. This time he did not sound so sharp. He sounded wise; he had the air of a person who has lived a long life, and seen and heard and felt things that most people would never understand.

''I know'', he repeated, ''that you love him. And I know the way that you love him; what you feel for him. Its not just because hes your best friend, thats a part of it, but it goes deeper. Much deeper. I get that. But look at yourself''-he gestured to my body, sitting ridiculously on the floor, crumpled like a defeated child-''do you think this is helping him? Its not. Give it time; give **him** time.''

I climbed to my feet, mumbling ''I guess you're right'', even though I didn't mean it. My head was tired and spinning, and I stumbled all the way to my room. I collapsed on the bed, thinking blearily, ''How long is time?'' I didn't even hear Collins leave, yet I heard myself sigh as I fell asleep, and the sigh sounded like the falling of rain.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: **The Room Inside My Heart**

Fandom: RENT

Rating: PG-13/T

Summary: How long does it take to feel again? Mark/Roger slash.

Disclaimer: Obviously, I dont own RENT, just renting the characters for awhile.

A/N I fixed the formatting on this chapter, and changed it a little, nothing major.

Chapter 2: **Not Yet Broken**

**(Roger's POV)**

The door creaked open slightly, and light filtered in through the crack, cutting the darkness. ''Go away,'' I said to Mark. I could not even see him, but I knew he was there. I could sense that he was. Sure enough, there was a sigh from outside in the hall. And then-''Roger, can I just-''

''No'', I said. ''No, no, no, for the millionth time, no. Go away, I dont want to talk to you right now.''

There was another soft sigh, then the light disappeared with the closing of the door, and I was in darkness again.

I guess time passed, but I do not know how long, exactly. I felt horrible, all hollow and full of aches, but I climbed out of bed anyway. I looked at my miserable surroundings: the stale, bare walls, the closed blinds on the window. It occurred to me that I did not want to be in this room any longer. It gave me a sense of suffocation; as if the memory of all that had ever happened here was tightening its grim fingers around my throat.

I walked out, shutting the door behind me in a symbolic attempt to close off the memories, keep them at bay where they could not bleed out into the rest of the loft, and contaminate it. Then, I realized that every place that Mimi had ever been, every room where we were ever together, was tainted.

I wandered into the little kitchen, my feet feeling heavy, as if there were leaden weights bound to my legs. I moved with a sick sort of shuffle, like a reanimated corpse. My clothes hung over my body, the same clothes I had been wearing for days. I felt like I should burn them; they too, were stained with memory.

The lights in the loft were on, and the sky outside was dark and moonless. A small man sat at the table, his head in his hands. Mark. He looked up when he heard my footsteps on the floor, and I noticed that his face was tired, and his eyes red from crying.

''Oh'', he said, with a look of surprise, ''You're...out of bed.''

''Yeah'', I mumbled, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table. There was silence for a few moments while Mark stared at me with what was possibly concern, or even pity. Then he gave me a lopsided sort of half-smile, which came across as utterly fake. I stared back blankly, not wanting to be smiled at.

I thought to myself that I probably should not have gotten out of bed at all today. I would rather have stayed in that evil little room with the choking aura of past, dead memory than emerge and be greeted with looks of pity and fake, meaningless smiles.

I stood up, leaving Mark sitting at the table, and walked into the bathroom. I flicked on the light switch, and there was a buzzing of electricity followed by illumination. The mirror above the filthy sink was cracked right down the middle. I wondered when that had happened. My reflection stared back at me, sliced in half by the cleavage of the glass. I did not recognize my face. My skin was pale as death, my cheekbones sharply visible. My hair was ridiculously long, unkempt and wild, which gave me a kind of mad Beethoven look. And those eyes. The eyes that stared back at me from the unknown face were haunted and empty and frightening. It was a face painted onto me by grief and fear and pain.

I heard footsteps behind me, and I whirled around. Mark was standing there quietly, observing me, and looking as if he were going to cry again.

''Don't you dare say anything'', I growled, my voice rusty from lack of use, ''And don't cry either. In fact, don't even look at me.''

I started to move past him, when he grabbed my arm. He held onto the sleeve of my shirt and stared right into my face; he looked deep into my foreign, phantom eyes.

''You're ok,'' Mark said. It was not a question. ''The mirror is broken, not you.''

I was not in the mood for anything cryptic, and I didnt even bother trying to deceipher the meaning of what he had said.

''I mean'', he added, ''it's going to be fine.''

''Like hell it is'', I mumbled bitterly, wrenching my arm away from him. I did not want to be touched; I had a heightened sensitivity, I suppose, because when he touched me, it felt as thought I had been burned.

I wanted to be alone, but not here. Not in this place. Even though the door to my room was closed, everything inside was seeping out from under it, and flooding the rest of the loft with its poison. Everything was becoming coated with the dust of memory. I needed to breathe free air.

I pushed past Mark, leaving him standing there, and did not look back. I grabbed my coat from where it hung in the closet, and walked out. Out into nothing, out into a city full of trapped and lonely people, out into darkness obscured by neon lights.

The cold air stung my skin like thousands of knives as I walked down the sidewalk. I shivered and swayed a little on my feet; I was weak from lack of food, but I kept moving anyway. Faces swam past me, paying no attention.

I paused, and breathed in. Chill air swept into my lungs, and seemed to freeze my insides. My breath made little puffs of smoke that made shapes like dragons in front of my face before disappearing. I gazed around, at the blank steel and concrete that was like a maze, and at the sidewalks that led to nowhere.

There was a man lying in the alley. His face looked like an old newspaper and his hair was dirty. He was wrapped in a battered coat, trying, I thought, to keep warm. Then I realized that he was dead.

A young woman walked by, with pretty blonde hair that curled at the ends, and pale blue eyes. She paused for a moment, and looked at the corpse. She shivered, made the sign of the cross, mumbled something in what sounded like Latin, and moved on.

I felt a strange, sick feeling wash over me like a wave. It moved through my veins and burned through my skin. It was a painful and grim realization. Death. It was all around me, and I could not escape it. I understood, then, as if a cruel and harsh light had been turned on inside me, that everyone was dying. It did not matter if they had a virus swimming through their blood, biding its time and waiting to strike like a serpent, it did not matter if cancer was consuming them from the inside, or if fate had made them healthy and strong; they were still dying.

Everyone, I thought, is born to break. We come into the world and our death warrants are already signed by some miserable deity. Immortality is not possible, we all fall back into the earth. But when? That was the question. Its impossible for us to know exactly how or when we die; but every day we live, it hangs over our heads, mocking us. The fates who will someday cut the strings that hold us to this world whisper in our ears, sending us memento moris and telling us that no, we are not forever. We will break, and we will die.

I turned around, not wanting to see any more. I turned and ran back the way I had come, willing myself to move faster though the fatigue was crushing me. Everything spun, and the every color of every street sign scalded me with its brightness. As I ran, I saw the young woman with the blonde hair, and knew that she would someday die. I passed a mother with a small child, and thought the same.

My brain was screaming with questions, questions that I had never thought of before. Deep and existential things were surfacing from the ocean of my soul, and I wanted to drown them again. People must have thought I was mad as I tore crazily down the sidewalk; my face ashen. I ran as if all Hell was pursuing me. But it was not Hell I was running from. Hell was an end, heaven was an end. When you are there, you are dead, its already happened. This was Purgatory, this was waiting and not knowing.

When I got back to the loft, I yanked open the door and fell inside, crashing to the floor, my lungs burning. My whole body shook violently, and I felt that it was going to crack apart. I had recognized mortality at last, which seemed bizarre, because I spent most of the previous days _wanting_ to die. There was a strange paradox withing me. I had seen death. In many ways. I had watched the woman I loved die, but even then, it was different than this. This was not just seeing a body. This was seeing Death for what it was, a clawing, mocking demon that sat on the shoulders of every person on this planet. It was cold, and it was unfeeling.

Mark appeared then, rushing over to me. He appeared terrified, which made him seem even younger and smaller; he looked like an abandoned, frightened child.

''Where have you _been_?'' he asked, in some strange combination of a strangled whisper and a shout, ''You scared me to death.''

''Don't say that word'', I said, my voice tiny and choked.

''What word?'' Mark looked confused.

''Death'', I muttered, staring at my hands, ''Don't say it.''

I cried then, I could not help it. All my unshed tears had been stored in little glass vials in my soul that were now shattering.

Mark put his arms around me; this time, I let him, I was too weak to protest. I leaned against him; clinging to his body as if he could save me from this painful storm inside my soul.

''I hate this'', I said, wiping my eyes. ''I hate crying in front of you.''

I looked into his face, which was full of understanding and heartbreak. He nodded, and helped me to stand up. We walked together, past the bathroom with the cracked mirror, and into my room. I did not care anymore that it was full of memories, after everything I had seen and felt I wanted familiarity. I wanted memories, even the bad ones. Anything was better than the cold and painful honesty of death. I closed my eyes, and pictured Mimi. I remembered her pretty eyes, and her smile. I remembered the songs I sang to her, and I remembered love.

''I'm ok...I'm ok...I'm ok...'' I chanted this to myself like a mantra, recalling what Mark had said to me earlier. ''I'm not broken...I'm not broken...''

But I was. I felt myself breaking. Little pieces of my soul were flying apart, and in the darkness I saw them. _Born to break._

Mark sat next to me on the bed and put his hand on my shoulder. I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but some part of me that had not yet shattered seemed to want him there. He sat up beside me all night, like a strange sentinel keeping watch.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: **The Room Inside My Heart**

Fandom: RENT

Rating: PG-13/T

Summary: How long does it take to feel again? Mark/Roger slash.

Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own RENT, just renting the characters for awhile.

Chapter 3: **In the Doorway**

**(Mark's POV)**

The morning light filtered in through the dusty blinds on the window in Rogers room. I was lying next to him, one arm over his body. I knew that I should probably move before he woke up, because I didnt really want him to think too much yet, if that made any sense. Part of me wanted so desperately for him to know that I loved him, loved him as much more than just a best friend. But at the same time, I had to wait. Mostly because I did not know what he would do or think, how he would react; he was still completely shattered over Mimi's death and I did not want to make things weird between us.

He left last night, and I was terrified. I paced frantically back and forth across the floor, debating whether or not to go and look for him, or if I should just let him come back on his own. When he did come back, he looked so distraught that I barely recognized him. And he cried, cried for so long , and that was something that I was not used to at all.

I helped him to his room, and I sat there with him, my hand on his shoulder until he fell asleep. I just looked at him all night long. I will never get tired of looking at Roger, because he is absolutely beautiful, even at his worst. When he is angry, its like a gorgeous and violent storm, and when he is happy, he is brighter than the sun. If he is sad or crying, I want to hold him. When he is sick, or tired, or drunk, or falling down, or miserable, it does not matter: he is still beautiful.

And now, last night was over and yet another day was beginning. Another day without Mimi. With the rising of the sun, we wake to opportunities and choices. Doors open for us, and other doors close. I did not know where this day would take us, but I had the strength to face it anyway. And that strength was something that I hoped I could give to Roger.

I sat up, removing my arm from across his sleeping form. I looked at his hands, where they rested on the bed. On impulse, I slowly lifted up his left hand while trying not to wake him up. Roger has good hands, the hands of a musician, with long, lovely fingers. I looked at his palm, trying to find his lifeline. It was there, curving in a gentle arc. I smiled slowly; his lifeline was long and unbreaking.

Roger stirred slightly beside me, and I dropped his hand, embarrassed. His eyelids fluttered open, and he looked at me.

''Hey'', he said, moving to sit up. He smiled a little, and the look of fear and grief that he had worn last night was gone, at least for the moment.

''I had a dream last night''.

''Really?'' I asked, ''What about?''

Roger thought for a minute, and then said, ''Doors.''

''Huh? Doors...you mean like the kind of doors you walk through, or the band?'' I felt like I should ask, because this was Roger, after all.

A light smile danced across his face again.

''The kind of doors that you walk through'', he said. ''In the dream, I was walking down this hallway, and there were paintings on the walls, like in a museum. And then, there were three doors at the end, like in a gameshow, kinda. I didnt know which one to walk through. But then I heard a bunch of different voices talking. One of them was Angel, one of them was Mimi, and one of them was you. I couldn't figure out what you guys were saying, but I recognized your voices, and I had the feeling that you were all talking from the other sides of each of the doors. So, I tried to find the door that Mimi was behind and walk through it. But then I heard Angels voice, and she was kinda going ''tsk-tsk'', like she didn't think that I should be walking through that particular door. And then I heard you talking, and for some reason I walked over to the door that I thought you were behind. I heard Angel and Mimi laughing and whispering then. It wasn't mean or malicious laughing and whispering, they were just giggling, like they were talking girl-talk, or something. And then I walked through the door to where you were. And then, I woke up, and here you are.''

Roger shrugged his thin shoulders and looked at me. ''Hell if I know what it all meant.''

There was something in the way he said this, however, that made me think he really did know what it meant. I tried not to think too hard about this, but part of me was spinning. Maybe he really **did **want to be with me. I was not sure, and I did not want to jump to any conclusions. It could have been just a random, nonsensical dream, just firings in his brain during sleep that did not mean anything. I didn't want to think that though, because I wanted to believe that he picked me.

''I don't know what it could have meant either'', I lied, getting up from the bed and walking over to the door. Roger said something, but he mumbled it, and I couldn't hear.

''What?'' I asked. He looked at me.

''There you are...in the doorway,'' he said softly, then turned his head away.


	4. Chapter 4

Title: **The Room Inside My Heart**

Fandom: RENT

Rating: PG-13/T

Summary: How long does it take to feel again? Mark/Roger slash.

Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own RENT, just renting the characters for awhile.

Chapter 4: **A Good Kind of Crazy**

**(Rogers POV)**

I could not stop thinking about that damn dream, it was driving me crazy. I have had this thing with dreams, ever since I was really young. If I had a dream about someone, or something, then my curiousity went wild, and I wanted to know everything I could about whatever who whoever I had dreamed about. For example, the reason that I started playing the guitar when I was twelve was because I dreamed about a guitar. It was really funny, because my mom wanted me to play the piano. But one night, I had a dream where I was holding a guitar and playing all this great music. And when I woke up the next morning, I told my mom that I didn't want to play the piano any more, because I was going to be a rock star, and play the electric guitar.

I have always figured that my dreams were like messages from some smarter, wiser part of myself, and so I try to pay attention. Now I have this weird and insatiable curiosity as to why I dreamed about doors, and why in the hell I chose the door that Mark was behind, even though I could just as easily have walked through Mimi's door. In the dream, I just had this odd sense that something was pulling me that way; behind that door was something I needed. But why do I need Mark?

He is...well, I don't know what he is, exactly, but I can say that he has always been there for me, more than anyone else. Another really odd thing is that this morning, when he was lying in bed next to me, he had his arm around me, and I didn't mind, for once. He did not know that I was awake, and I guess I didn't want him to know. Because I got the feeling that if he knew I was awake, then he would move. And I didn't **want **him to move; thats the weird part. I liked having him there. We were just _close._

The thing with Mark is that, he's ok. Thats just it. He is ok. Not OK, like as in average, but ok in the sense that he does not have all these demons. I mean, everyone has demons, but he never had an addiction, he does not have a volatile temper, and he is not being slowly killed by AIDS. I guess I always sort of envied him for all those years that we knew each other and lived together. Even though I had all the girls, and the semi-fame, he had **something**. He was pretty calm most of the time, he always tried to be the peacemaker, he always tried to ground me when I was flying crazy high on something...he saved my life, I guess.

All my life I have watched people, and observed them. And I could be watching the ugliest, most unattractive person on the planet, but they would have that _something_ that made it impossible to look away. Charisma, I guess. Or the fact that the person gave off vibes that just made me want to be around them, and I would think, just for a moment: ''God, I would love to be him.''

I suffered from self-esteem problems, I think, even though for a while I knew that **I **was envied. What I'm trying to say is that, I could never really open myself up to Mark, because part of me hated him for being ok. I did read somewhere that the best relationships are between two people who can balance each other out; they are not too similar in personality. For example, a moody, tortured-artist type would not be good in a relationship with another moody, tortured-artist type. They would probably kill each other. The tortured artist would need someone steady, to pull them out of their moods and to ground them.

Me, I always went for people who were just as miserable as I was, because I felt that they understood. And they did understand, but it did not necessarily make for a happy relationship. I used to think that relationships were not supposed to be happy; if you wanted real passion and real love then you had to suffer, and feel your heart cut out over and over again.

But now, I'm having all these insane new emotions, and I don't understand them. I woke up this morning and I felt good, and almost changed. It should not be that way, I should still be miserable. Maybe it is true what they say, that it is always darkest before the dawn. It had never been as dark as last night, so maybe this is the dawn. I don't know, but I feel guilty.

Mark held my hand this morning, when he was next to me in bed. The thing was, he held it so gently, and with such reverence, almost. It scared me; everything is scaring me, feeling ok is scaring me, and I don't know what to think. I don't feel like telling him to fuck off anymore when he tries to talk to me, in fact I want him to talk to me.

I walked over to the window, where the sun shone in. It was November, and the sky was a beautiful deep blue, way above all the tall steel and concrete. I have heard that even when it is raining, the sky is still blue, behind the clouds. It is waiting there; the sun is just hiding, waiting for a wind to blow the clouds and the rain away, so that it can shine again. Sort of like life. Maybe we are all really blue skies and sunshine underneath. Bad things happen, but then the winds of change come swooshing in to show us who we really are.

Mark was watching me standing by the window. He walked over quietly and stood next to me, but not too close. I had the feeling that he was hesitating getting too near me, but I didn't know why.

''Hey'', I said, turning my face so that I could see him better.

''You seem ok, today'', he said, ''I mean..you seem...'' It was as if he could not find a word.

''Yeah''. I laughed a little. ''It might not last for very long, so Im trying to enjoy it while I can. The thing is, I don't really know why I feel ok. There is no rain anymore, not today.''

Mark looked out the window. ''Nope, its actually a really nice day, for a change.''

''I meant...'' I searched for a way to explain. ''I meant that there is no more rain inside me. No storm, no misery; its calm and the sun is shining.'' I shrugged. ''I guess its wind, you know?''

''Huh?'' he asked, looking slightly confused.

I explained to him about my sky theory, and he said, ''Well, what was the wind for you? What changed you?''

''I dont know'', I told him, when I actually did know, or I at least had a vague idea. I was still trying to work all this out.

''Hey'', Mark said suddenly, as if he had come to a decision about something, ''you want to go somewhere? Out, anywhere, I dont care, you can pick the place...''

His words all ran together, and then he paused, looking oddly shy.

''Um, sure,'' I replied. I figured that I might as well get out of the loft before my skies clouded over again, and I was back in my room feeling miserable.

''Where do you want to go?'' Mark asked me, as we walked away from the window, and over to the door. Almost without thinking, I blurted out:

''I want to go to the museum''.

Mark actually laughed. **''You** want to go to a museum? I never figured you for a museum type of guy. Which museum?''

''The art one,'' I said, and started to laugh a little. ''You know...the one where they have, um, paintings?''

Mark must have thought I was slightly insane. ''Well, which art museum? There are a million of them in the city.''

''I dont know''. I tried to think of the name. ''The big one...whats it called?''

''The Metropolitan Museum of Art?'' Mark supplied, rolling his eyes at me. ''And _how_ long have you lived in New York, Rog?''

''Yeah, thats the one'', I said, and then I started laughing even harder, which scared me. Everything suddenly seemed ridiculously alright, nothing was bad. I tried to criticize myself at that moment, tell myself that I was a horrible, wretched person for laughing at anything, for feeling happy...or for feeling at _all_. The numbing grief, the shock, the cold and vile fear; all these things that had held me so tightly were letting go. I was being pried from their claws by something stronger. And this was terrifying, but it was a different sort of terror. It was not black and evil terror, it was almost like anticipation. Like I was standing on a platform in the air above a pool, waiting to make a high dive for the first time.

Mark watched me as I laughed, and then he said, ''You are crazy, you know that? But its a good kind of crazy today...not a dark, painful, and depressing kind. I like you when you're this way. I've missed it.''

We started to walk together out the door and I said, almost to myself, ''I've missed it, too.''


	5. Chapter 5

Title: **The Room Inside My Heart**

Fandom: RENT

Rating: PG-13/T

Summary: How long does it take to feel again? Mark/Roger slash.

Disclaimer: Obviously, I dont own RENT, just renting the characters for awhile.

A/N I fixed this chapter too. Thank yous again to all my reviewers, especially **Harpers Pixie.**

Also: I feel I should thank Hathor, Egyptian Goddess of Love, for the scene with the museum.

Chapter 5: **Blame the Moon**

**(Mark's POV)**

We were standing in the museum, in front of a display of The Egyptian Book of the Dead. It was very pretty, actually, all written out on papyrus. It looked very ancient, and almost holy.

''You know'', Roger said, looking at it, ''that movie was all wrong, I think.''

''What movie?'' I asked.

''The one about the evil mummy guy who comes back to life by sucking the organs and stuff out of other people...there was that really hot librarian chick, and that girl in the beginning with all the paint all over her...''

''Oh, yeah'', I said, remembering. ''That movie was called _The Mummy. _We went to see it with Maureen.''

''Well, they got it all wrong'', Roger repeated, ''The people who made this don't seem like they would be the type to go around cursing people. You see, this whole book here''-he gestured to the exhibit-''was basically a kind of guide for the dead who were crossing over. Like, all that stuff about the boats, or whatever. They were traveling to the next life; it wasn't supposed to be anything spooky. People come in here and they're like, 'oooh, scary, Book of the Dead...whoooo, creepy', but it didn't scare the Egyptians. They even had all their junk put in their tombs with them, because they would need it in the next world.''

''Where did you learn that?'' I asked, slightly amazed.

Roger rolled his eyes at me. ''It says so right over there by that sarcophagus, you dope''.

I grinned. He grinned back at me, and then all of a sudden, his face fell, and he turned his head a little bit, so that he was not really looking at me face anymore. He moved over to where a mummy was on display in a case. I watched him as he looked at it.

He said, ''I wonder if this guy ever loved anyone. You know, if he had a wife or a girlfriend, or _someone_ that he loved. And I also wonder if he died before her, and she was left to grieve, or if she died first, and _he _grieved. I wonder if the Egyptians grieved at all. Because they didn't see death as anything too scary, do you think that they were sad when they knew that they were dying, or when someone they loved died? Were they sure that it would be ok, that they were going to a nice place? I don't know.''

I moved over to Roger, and put my hand on his shoulder. He did not look up; his long hair was falling in front of his face, and I could not see his eyes.

''I feel bad, you know'', he murmured. ''I feel sad, and scared, and guilty; but at the same time, Im happy, and its really weird.''

''Why do you feel guilty?'' I asked him.

''_Because_ I am happy,'' he admitted, ''Because I woke up this morning and for the first time in what seems like forever, I feel ok. And there is this odd terror that it is all going to go away tomorrow, and I will wake up and be miserable again. I don't want Mimi to hate me. I feel like a terrible person for laughing and smiling and being alright, and not still grieving, and crying, and feeling depressed. Its so _complicated_ and confusing.''

''Roger'', I said, ''listen to me. You can feel happy. Mimi wants you to be happy. She _loved_ you. And people who love you want you to be happy; that is part of what love is. She doesn't want you to be broken, or grieve forever now that she is gone. What sort of person would Mimi have been if she is sitting up on a cloud somewhere, saying: 'that bastard didn't cry for me at least once today'? She would not have been very nice, and we both know that she was. And remember your dream. You wanted to walk through the door to where she was...I guess that was kind of a symbolic thing where you wanted to die so that you could be with her again. But then Angel said that you should not go through that door, meaning that it is not your time to die yet. And then you chose the door where I was, which I guess means that you want to live more than you want to die. And you said that Mimi and Angel were laughing together, meaning that they were glad you chose to live. So you see'', I finished, ''Mimi wants you to be here, and she wants you to be happy.''

''With you..'' Roger mumbled this and did not look at me; he turned his head further so that I could not meet his eyes.

''Huh?'' I asked him, pulling him around so that he faced me directly, ''What did you say?''

''I said'', he repeated, ''that she wants me to be happy here, with you...and I guess that I am. Happy. With-''

I did not even let him finish what he was going to say; I did not think, I just moved, and kissed him. Nothing fancy, just a weird little small kiss on the lips. I had **no** idea why I chose that exact moment, in a museum full of people, in front of a bandaged dead guy thousands of years old, to kiss him. I was sure I was insane, and I was equally sure that he was going to absolutely despise me from now on.

But Roger did not say anything, he just looked at me for about a minute with utter bewilderment and confusion, mixed with a trace of an emotion I could not identify.

Then he said, ''I think that we should leave now''. The words were almost whispered.

I just nodded, and we walked together silently, away from the Egyptian exhibit, through the rest of the museum, down a hall filled with paintings on the walls, and out the door.

The silence was, as they say, deafening, as we walked back into the loft. I could already sense what was going to happen. Roger was going to go into his room and close the door, and I was going to cry. I had it all planned out.

But, to my amazement, Roger didn't go anywhere near his room; instead, he walked over to the window, and looked out. This was becoming a strange kind of habit with him.

''It's getting dark now,'' he said, ''I wonder if the sky is blue underneath the night.''

I laughed a little at that. ''Well, if you're up in space, the Earth always looks blue. Its a blue planet. So, kind of. But it turns, on an axis. When the sun is going down here, it is actually coming up on the other side of the world. People over there are just waking up. Like, in Australia, its tomorrow already. And when we have summer, they have winter...'' I was babbling useless facts, in an attempt to ease my own mind.

Roger continued to stare out the window. ''I can see the moon'', he said, ''It's full.''

''That must be why I was so crazy today,'' I muttered, looking down at the dirty floor.

If he heard me say this, then he did not make it known, but then he said:

''Do you remember that girl that I dated in high school? Her name was Beth, but she called herself RavenWing, or something...''

I searched my memory. There were so many girls that Roger dated in high school, it was hard to keep track.

''I think so'', I said, ''She had red hair, and she red Tarot cards, right?''

Roger laughed. ''Yeah, that was her. She thought that you had a good aura. Anyway, she used to talk to me about the moon. She was a Wiccan, or whatever they are called. She told me that when the moon is full, its a very sacred time; your psychic senses open up, and you have all this weird, wonderful energy. She said that it a good time for magick. I don't really know if all that is true or not, but she also told me to always make wishes on the moon, because they are sure to come true. The Moon Goddess will listen.''

I walked over and stood next to him. It was the same way we stood earlier in the day, and we were still talking about the sky.

''Roger'', I said, ''I want to talk about what happened today at the museum. Im sorry. I really didn't mean to do that. I just got...I don't know...I felt kind of...'' I trailed off.

''Crazy,'' he supplied, reaching over and grabbing me by the arm, pulling me closer to him. ''Well, I'm crazy too, remember?''

The moon shone down on us, bright and smiling. Roger leaned over to me, our faces almost touching. I could feel his breath on my skin.

''You told me yourself'', he said, ''It's a _good_ kind of crazy. And I am not sorry about what happened in the museum. Maybe I will be tomorrow, but Im not right now, and right now is all we have. So, if I kiss you, and you kiss me back, tomorrow we can blame the moon, but right now I don't want to blame anyone. Especially not the Moon Goddess, or whoever is up there. I want to thank her.''

He pressed his lips to mine very softly at first, but then with more urgency. I kissed him back with equal passion, still not believing that this was really happening. Everything was spinning around us like a wonderful, intoxicating blur of emotion and energy and colour. I was completely lost in the embrace.

I moved my lips away from his mouth and I kissed his forehead, chin, neck, everything. He moaned lightly, which only made me crazier, and our lips crushed together again. The sky looked in on us from the window, and through the sound of my heart pounding I could hear the moon laughing while the stars danced.


	6. Chapter 6

Title: **The Room Inside My Heart**

Fandom: RENT

Rating: PG-13/T

Summary: How long does it take to feel again? Mark/Roger slash.

Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own RENT, just renting the characters for awhile.

A/N Ok, I fixed this one too. Hopefully, now I can actually update.

Thanks to all my reviewers who liked this chapter, its complete fluff, I know, but that's totally alright. It has a little bit of a different style, it's basically snapshots from the next day, and Roger's thoughts, or whatever...enjoy. And you guys get whatever cookies or candy you want...just because you're all awesome beyond awesome.

The name **Aki **is a Japanese name that I like, it means ''autumn''. I thought it would be cool for Roger to have had a Buddhist girlfriend at some point, because Buddhists rock...

Also, Wiccans rock too, which is why I mentioned him dating the Wiccan girl in the last chapter.

Have fun, guys...see you next chapter..(which hopefully I can finish tonight)

Chapter 6: **Sunlight Through Windows I Had Never Seen Until Now**

**(Roger's POV)**

It was five in the morning and still dark when I woke up. I got up off the couch and walked over to the window again. And there was the moon, still shining; it had not yet set. I leaned against the windowsill and sighed; my breath made the window mist up, and I wrote my initials on it with my finger. I hadn't done that since I was little, but I felt like doing it today. I started to hum a little bit, some song I did not recognize. Perhaps it had not been written yet.

''Hey, window boy'', said a sleepy voice from behind me, ''why are you awake? Its _early_.''

I turned around and looked at Mark. ''Hi'', I said, ''Um, I guess I felt like starting early.''

He slipped his arms around me and gave me a kiss. ''Take your AZT'', he said.

I grinned. No weirdness.

How did we get here? To this point, I mean. How do things change so rapidly all of a sudden? What is love? How would you define it? You cant. I once dated this girl named Aki, who was a Buddhist. I have dated a lot of girls who were much smarter than me, and much more spiritual. I always seemed to date the spiritual ones, who taught me a lot in a very short amount of time.

Aki taught me about Zen, and how you should not question things, because that distracts you from the present moment. She told me about her favorite book, ''The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'', which she said was a perfect example of Zen. For example, in the story, the answer to all things in the Universe is the number 42. Aki said that was a perfect answer, because people just cannot know, and its so stupid to even ask. She taught me about these things called koans, which are questions that can never be answered. They are supposed to help clear your mind. Like, ''If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?'' She really got me with that one.

Living in the moment, Aki said, was what was important. And you know what? Mimi taught me the same thing. I guess women really are smarter than men.

Mark makes me want to write songs. But the songs I keep hearing in my head do not have any words. It is just beautiful music.

I have this weird feeling inside of me, almost like my soul is smiling so widely that it hurts. But it hurts in a good way.

Last night, Mark and I fell asleep together. No, we didn't have sex, or anything. We would have, except for the fact that we didn't have any condoms. I threw the rest of them out after Mimi died.

And it was me who made the crack in the mirror. I did not even remember that until yesterday. I must have been in a fog. But it all came back to me.

The day she died, it was raining. My heart froze over when the green line on the monitor went flat, and that evil beeping started. It cut through my soul. And then Mark helped me walk home, as rain came falling down. It was like heaven was crying, or something. I remember my feet slapping on the pavement, and every step sent violent shockwaves through my body.

When we got back to the loft, we were both soaking wet. The place was dark and empty, and water poured off of our clothes and made puddles on the floor. I went into my room, and closed the door. I lay there, listening to the rain pound and lash against the window.

I don't remember any of the next day, but I know that night Mark was sitting out in the hall. Collins was there, and he told Mark to go to sleep, that I would be fine, and some other stuff I did not hear.

After Collins left, and Mark finally went to bed, I slipped out of my room, and walked into the bathroom. I looked into the mirror, but my face was a blur. I threw all the condoms into the trash, because I had the feeling that I would never be having sex again.

I saw this bottle of shampoo sitting on the edge of the sink. It was Mimi's. Her hair always smelled really nice. I picked it up, and chucked it really violently at the mirror. It made a loud cracking sound, but Mark did not wake up.

When I finally emerged from my room, the day when I had my weird little midnight run, and existential freak-out, that was the day when I saw my reflection clearly for the first time. That was also the day when I saw the crack in the mirror, not remembering that I put it there.

_''The mirror is broken, not you.''_ That was what Mark said. I did not know just what the hell he meant by that, and I still don't exactly, but I think that he knew it was me who broke it.

I took my AZT, like Mark told me to. I stood at the sink with a glass of water, and looked at the little pill in my hand. I had a little discussion with it; I said, ''_Please, please, please, just keep me going, keep me alive, give me more time, please, please, I will do anything.''_

It was actually more like a prayer to an unknown god, a prayer of begging and pleading; pleading for strength, redemption, and life.

Mark was holding his camera again, a sure sign that everything was ok. It was the familiarity that was so strange. Like it should have always been this way.

''Hey, stand by the window again'', he said to me, smiling, ''Since it is your new favorite thing to do.''

I walked over, and let the rising sun spill over me. ''That's perfect,'' Mark said. The words were almost like a sigh.

''Close on Roger'', he whispered, ''who has found a window that he never noticed before.'' I smiled.

''Hey, you know what?'' Mark said, with a look almost like awe on his face, ''from over here, it looks like you have a halo.''

''I would **not** make a very good angel'', I said, laughing.

He set the camera down and moved over to me, wrapping me in his arms. We looked out the window together, just silently holding each other and watching the sun rise higher in the sky.

''I really do love this window'', I whispered, ''I can see everything, and its so much brighter, and so much more beautiful. And I can hear music, whenever you are around. There are no words, but it sounds better without them. Sometimes words only mess things up. How can you say what you really feel, when it is so far above and beyond any language?''

He gazed into my eyes and said, ''Don't try. Don't try to say anything. Just be.''


	7. Chapter 7

Title: **The Room Inside My Heart**

Fandom: RENT

Rating: PG-13/T

Summary: How long does it take to feel again? Mark/Roger slash.

Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own RENT, just renting the characters for awhile.

A/N This chapter is...well, I don't know what the hell it is. They have sex, yeah, but its not exactly what you might call smut. This stuff is a bitch for me to write, because I always tend to get too metaphysical and wordy...I did the snapshot thing again, where its basically scenes from the next day, whatever...and the stuff interspersed throughout in italics is basically just Mark waxing philosophical about the stuff thats happening...sort of like commentary, I guess.

Sex is not alway happy, wonderful, spiritual, la la la field of flowers...but I would like to believe that it could be, so this chapter is me looking through rose colored lenses at the world. Enjoy...

To All My Reviewers, especially the fabulous **Harpers Pixie: **I love you guys with all my heart, you make me want to keep writing.

Also: **the fraulein** : I apologize for the schizophrenic formatting on the other chapters; it should be fixed now.

This chapter is dedicated to my brother, who I caught this morning writing a _Star Wars_, Anakin/Obi-Wan slash fanfic. I was so proud...

Chapter 7: **The Way You Look When You See Heaven**

_''nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals_

_the power of your intense fragility; whose texture_

_compels me with the color of its countries_

_rendering death and forever with each breathing_

_(i do not know what it is about you that closes_

_and opens; only something in me understands_

_the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)_

_nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands''_

_- e.e. cummings_

**(Mark's POV)**

I feel compelled to watch him all the time. Every move he makes, I have this need to record it. I think that maybe he gets cranky when I follow him around with my camera, but he never shows it.

Rogers eyes are different. They changed. Or, I should say, they changed back. When I first knew him in high school, and then when we moved into the loft, before the April and the drugs, and the AIDS and Mimi...then his eyes were magnetic, captivating. They were the exact color of the ocean, blue-green and deep, completely fathomless. You could drown entirely in them, feeling that there was no better way to die.

When he knew April, before the drugs, his eyes were bluer. They were a kind of bright blue, like a summer sky, but not as pretty. It was almost an angry blue. After the drugs, they were a foggy, sleepy, dull blue. After April killed herself, and he found out he had AIDS, then they were a sickly, near-gray blue for months.

With Mimi, his eyes were greener. Sometimes they were a sharp, biting green, like a blade of grass, or other times they were a swampy green, like a pond.

They were never the way they used to be, though. Not like when we were younger, and his eyes could absolutely floor you with just one look. They had not been that way for years. Not until recently.

Roger was sitting on the floor, holding his guitar, absent-mindedly strumming it. I was filming, of course. He looked up, grinned, and stuck his tongue out at me.

''Rog, don't stick it out unless youre gonna use it,'' I said.

He laughed, a real laugh that rang through the air and echoed off of the walls. ''You're cute, you know,'' he said.

''Do you really think so?'' I asked, not quite believing him. I had never thought of myself as cute.

Roger rolled his eyes at me. ''Yes, I really think so.''

A few moments passed. While I watched him, I thought about what he had said, and I could not help thinking that this whole situation we had found ourselves in bordered on bizarre. It was like a Salvador Dali painting, strange but fascinating; the different aspects not really making any sense in themselves, yet coming together to form a wonderful finished product.

There had been death, there had been change. There had been destruction like a forest fire, clearing the old so that the new could grow. There had been rain, and then sun, and there would be rain again, but it would not be the same. It never rains the same way twice, and no two snowflakes are alike. Nature is about chaos; random events that do not appear to be connected in any way, yet somehow, through whatever chain, are linked.

And so here we were, me and Roger, connecting links in the chain. What made it happen? What made us connect? I don't know. It could have been some sort of plan written long before we were born; an experiment of some god. We cant know. Its stupid to ask. What we are is a Zen koan, a question that cannot have an answer, and should not be given one. If someone asked me: ''How did this happen, with you two? How did your apparently straight best friend all of a sudden, only a little while after his girlfriend died, decide that he loves you?'' I would probably laugh, and say: ''42.''

I filmed him while he played a song, a song with no words. But words were not needed, language is a barrier to emotion, it cheapens it, and gets in the way.

His beautiful, long fingers moved gracefully over the guitar strings, and he leaned back slightly, head tilted, lost in the music. His eyes were closed, and his lips were parted slightly. I wondered to myself if he would look that way when we finally had sex, if he would wear the same look of heavenly ecstasy. I hoped so.

And he did.

We sat together on the floor. Roger put the guitar down and said, ''I went to the store today.'' He pulled something out of the pocket of his jacket, which was lying across the couch.

I smiled. He put his arms around me and kissed me, first slowly and gently, then with more intensity. As his tongue moved in my mouth, I ran my hands all over his body, touching him everywhere. His fingers fumbled with the buttons on my shirt, and his mouth moved to my neck.

-_Its quiet and different. It is not odd, it is not strange. It was supposed to be. Predestined. We were born to fit together. Like a puzzle that could not be completed without the missing piece. Not weird. Familiar. Ok. Does it really matter what body a person comes into the world with; male or female? Is gender a barrier to love? I heard somewhere that the ancient Greeks believed that in the beginning of time, when souls were created, they were split into two pieces. The pieces were separated, sent to opposite corners of the earth. Throughout many lifetimes, they have to find their way back to each other; find the body that the missing half of their souls resides in. It could be a man, or a woman. It does not matter. All that matters is, they fit together. There is a coming home, a sense that, yeah, this is what I was missing. No questions. Don't ask. It gets in the way. Feeling, that is what is important._

I moaned and let sensation wash over me. Then I pushed him away from me gently, because I wanted to look at him. I just wanted to _see_, to burn the memory into my mind.

-_I lived my whole life seeing things through a camera lens, finding a perfect moment worth capturing, something that I could always hold on to, rewind it, replay it. I could think, ''this is what I saved, I froze this scene in time, it is mine.'' My camera was turned off now, and sitting idly on the table. It looked small, and like a toy. Machines can break, film reels can be lost, but the mind can remember things, emotions, sensations, that will never be lost or broken. Those things, those perfect moments, will live on inside the mind, forever etched into the consciousness of whoever chooses to keep them there._

His long hair framed his face like a cloud; his eyes burned like fiery oceans. Lips were reddened and full from bruising kisses. _Beautiful._

Roger managed to get all the buttons on my shirt undone; three broke in the process and made sounds like pins dropping as they flew across the room, landing where, I did not know. They looked like shooting stars while falling.

He kissed my bare chest; his tongue ran along my collarbones and sent little shivers and delicious shockwaves throughout my body. His hand groped at the zipper on my jeans, pulling it down. He touched me where I most needed to be touched; fingers closing over the hardness between my legs. Moving his lips away from the top half of my body, he focused his attention on what was lower. I closed my eyes.

-_Every now and again, one door in our life closes, and another one is opened. There are exits and entrances, faces move in and out of our eye view, and some almost disappear, but they are never truly gone. They are waiting behind some other door, a door that we have not yet discovered. And sometimes there are windows in our life, windows that we never knew were there until one day, the sun shines through them, and we truly see for the first time._

The window in the loft was open. It was twilight; that sacred, in-between time of the day when the veil between the worlds is thinnest; you are not quite sure if it is day or night, the sky holds both the sun and the moon in her arms, and a kind of hush falls around the world.

Hands touched, fingers entwined, mouths kissed, and licked, and sucked, and bit. Bodies crashed together like the meeting of waves out on the ocean. I watched him while he came; sweat on his skin like dew droplets on roses in May mornings, head tilted, eyes shut, lips parted. A wordless sigh that sounded like music; a moan.

-_The French have a word for everything, or so I have heard. They have invented some of the most important and descriptive sexual phrases that permeate language today. Their term for orgasm means ''the little death''. Do you really die, in a sense? Men are different than women with this; women are multi-orgasmic creatures, they can come over and over again right away during sex, whereas with men, it is once. One time, one explosion of hot life that comes rushing, while the man is powerless to stop it. So, in a sense, it is a death. A complete and utter lack of control, a letting go, a surrendering. Just holding on tightly to whoever you are with, whispering and gasping, sighing and screaming with pleasure as you touch heaven, and then fall back down to earth, to waiting arms._

Roger looked at me, through eyes half-closed. He and I were lying together silently on the floor, wrapped in each others arms. Part of me was terrified, yes, utterly and completely terrified that this was a mistake, a scar on our relationship. Things could get weird, confusing, or even just utterly horrible for us, because of what had happened. Some lucky people can just fuck whoever, some nameless person whose face they will never remember, because they did not feel anything. They felt the physical; they felt pleasure and joy and happiness; sex was like a drug for them, they took a hit, and were ok for a while.

Love is different. When you have sex with someone, and you _love_ them...then making love becomes terrifyingly beautiful, white-hot and extreme. It can be the most wonderful thing that you could ever possibly do, or it can scare you to death.

I looked back at him, stared into his eyes, and I saw the ocean again, deep and perfect. Those were the eyes I remembered, and they made his whole face look somewhat different. Softer, more relaxed; less tense and severe. It was like a completion, a wheel had come full circle somewhere. We had moved out of the darkness and into where it was lighter. And there would be more darkness, but it did not seem so frightening any more, something had taken the edge off the Night. Maybe it was the moon, which was still full. Like the sun always being underneath the clouds, the Moon is always there, up in the sky, looking down, even when we cannot see it. Knowing these things is a comfort, it gives us a sense that we are not alone. Things happen, seasons change, and we change too; people are always growing and evolving.

I put my fingers against his cheek, and he brought his hand up and rested it on top of mine. Links in a chain. No words.

We fell asleep like that, the moonlight covering our bodies like a blanket. As I drifted off, I heard the Moon Goddess laugh again, but this time she was laughing along with two strangely familiar voices.

A/N I have noooooooo idea...tell me what you think, and I will buy you the entire town of Hershey, Pennsylvania.


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